Redington on track

Redington has ditched the idea of transforming an existing Jebel Ali facility into a state-of-the-art automated distribution centre (ADC) and will instead select a fresh piece of land on which it can build the hub from scratch.

Redington has ditched the idea of transforming an existing Jebel Ali facility into a state-of-the-art automated distribution centre (ADC) and will instead select a fresh piece of land on which it can build the hub from scratch.

"We did evaluate one or two existing buildings, but we found that it would need too much modification to meet our requirements," explained Mathew Thomas, vertical head for IT distribution at the company. "We'd rather build it fresh and we are evaluating a few proposals."

Redington is now waiting to hear if it has secured the land it needs to begin development of the ADC. "We are currently zeroing in on a piece of land," said Thomas. "It is not easy to get it, based on the size of what is needed and the location. But we are very confident we will be closing in on it before April and starting the project before the end of our first quarter in June."

Meanwhile, Redington is also exploring the possibility of opening a warehouse in Jeddah as it looks for ways to expand its Saudi operation.

"We are just weighing it up from an economy of scale point of view," said Thomas. "But it's very much in the plan because a Jeddah customer currently has to wait 24 hours for the product to come from the mother warehouse in Riyadh."